January 27, 2009
Committee Urges Schools to “Recruit” Homeschoolers to Fix Budget
A committee of the Rapid City School Board wants to fix the system’s broken budget by recruiting homeschoolers.
The Rapid City School Board created a committee last summer to examine budget issues for the school system. On January 22, their recommendations were made public. The report suggested that the school system could find additional revenue sources by “recruiting more homeschooled students into the district.” Other recommendations were made, as well.
Homeschoolers already feel somewhat taken advantage of. Not only do they pay for an expensive public education for the children of others, but they pay the full cost of educating their own children at home. Of the thousands of dollars of tax money they send to the school system to educate other people’s children, they do not even get back one dollar. The idea of homeschooled children being recruited to repair a school system’s broken budget is unacceptable. If the school system built too many buildings and hired too many staff, the solution is to reduce the use of buildings and reduce staff—not lure homeschool families to give their children back to the public schools.
HSLDA attorney Scott Woodruff wrote a letter to the president of the Rapid City school board, urging her to reject the committee’s suggestion.
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